Book Review: C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell: A Companion and Study Guide to the Screwtape Letters by William O'Flaherty

C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell: A Companion and Study Guide to the Screwtape Letters by William O'Flaherty

Paperback, 300 pages
Published March 15th 2016 by Winged Lion Press, LLC

Today, C. S. Lewis is arguably most known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, but before that, The Screwtape Letters was his first claim to fame. He even appeared on the cover of Time magazine with a picture of the devil behind his shoulder.

William O'Flaherty has put together a very practical and useful study guide for The Screwtape Letters. I could easily see myself using this to lead a book club or small group study through The Screwtape Letters. O'Flaherty's book contains plot summary, and great discussion guide questions (and even suggested answers!) along with a topical glossary and several appendices. It has been endorsed by several Lewis scholars including Diana Pavlac Glyer, Don King, Devin Brown, Carolyn Curtis, Charlie W. Starr, and Crystal Hurd. I would recommend it to anyone who loves Lewis and wants to further their study of The Screwtape Letters.

Lewis enthusiasts may know O’Flaherty from his work with the “All About Jack” podcast and EssentialCSLewis.com.

C. S. Lewis Goes to Hell Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

View all my reviews

A Senior Devil, Mere Faith, and the Beginnings of My Life in Jesus (Guest Post by Tim Fall)

I am excited to welcome Tim Fall to the blog today in the Books that Read Us series. I promise, not all of the posts in this series will be about C. S. Lewis, but this one is. And it's a good one! Enjoy!

***

Is it cliché to say that C.S. Lewis had a formative influence on my understanding of what it means to belong to Jesus? Not that it matters if it is cliché.

It's true.

An Atheist Reads a Devil's Letters

The Screwtape Letters came to me as a gift, both literally and figuratively. I was an atheist traveling around England on Christmas break in 1983 and a couple of young Christian women I met thought I might like Lewis' epistolary novel of temptation and faith.

I did.

Screwtape advised his nephew Wormwood how to capitalize on his target's petty jealousies of others.

I recognized petty jealousies in my own life.

Screwtape spoke of leveraging the target's smug self-satisfaction.

I recognized smug self-satisfaction in my own life.

Screwtape spoke of building on the resentment the target had toward those who put demands on him.

I recognized resentment in my own life.

In almost every letter Screwtape wrote Wormwood, I recognized myself. And Lewis was so darned clever about it all too. His writing is masterful and if I didn't know better I would have thought this was a set of letters found in a Senior Devil's attic.

It was in the middle of reading this book, while sitting in an empty railway car traveling south out of London, that I lost my atheism forever:

I was alone and picked up the book Louise bought me to read along the way. The train stopped at a couple stations, and I was just settling in to read some more when I found I could not concentrate very well. I kept reading the same paragraph over and over. I had a feeling like you get sometimes in a library or other quiet place that someone must have walked in when you weren’t looking. I figured someone must have gotten on at the last station without me noticing. So I stood up and looked around. No one in the railway car but me.

I sat back down and opened the book again. Now I found myself reading not the same paragraph but the same sentence over and over again. The feeling that someone was there with me was overwhelming, not allowing me to concentrate at all, so I started to get up to look again. Then I told myself, We haven’t stopped at a station since the last time you looked, Tim. There’s no one here. I sat back down and completely unbidden came a question I would never have imagined coming from my lips. Out loud. In an otherwise empty railway car.

“OK God, what do you want?”

The details of where it went from there are in My Salvation Story, but suffice to say that I went from atheist to theist to Christian in fairly short order at that point. And C.S. Lewis was with me on the way.

Mere Faith

I found a little Christian book store in Brighton, about an eight minute train ride from where I was studying at the University of Sussex. I looked for more by Lewis and found Mere Christianity, a collection of essays adapted from radio talks Lewis gave during World War Two.

In those essays he wrote of the basics of what it means to belong to Christ.

Lewis wrote of the law of right and wrong.

I discovered I had a conscience and it is a gift from God.

Lewis wrote of what it means to believe in Jesus as God.

I discovered that faith in anyone or anything else precludes faith in Jesus.

Lewis wrote of behavior as signifying who we follow.

I discovered there were things I did that I'd be better off not doing.

In other words, I learned the basics.

The Challenges of a Thoughtful Faith

There was more Lewis in my future, and I read everything I could get my hands on: fiction, essays, sermons, allegories. Most of it I've read more than once. Lewis taught me not only the basics and the nuances of the faith, but that being thoughtful and cerebral are as valid a way of growing in Christ as being hands-on in fellowship and ministry with others. Lewis advised both.

His writing isn't for everybody but it has spoken to me at crucial times, like in that railway car more than thirty years ago. It's as if he read me and then wrote for me.

***

Tim is a California native who changed his major three times, colleges four times, and took six years to get a Bachelor’s degree in a subject he’s never been called on to use professionally. Married for over 27 years with two grown kids, his family is constant evidence of God’s abundant blessings in his life. He and his wife live in Northern California. He blogs, and can be found on Twitter and Facebook too.

The Books that Read Us: C. S. Lewis

Today I am kicking off a series of posts here on my blog where we talk about a book or author who has impacted our theological and/or spiritual journey. I say "we" because after this post, I will be hosting a series of guest posts for this series! Look for them every Wednesday for most of the rest of the year!

In this post from last year I briefly talked about some of the books and authors that I described as having "wrecked" my theology, but in a good way. I called that post Wrecked Theology: The Books that Read Us. I love the idea that the books are doing something to us, because they do! Books have the power to introduce us to new ideas and change our ways of thinking.

In that post I mentioned Greg Boyd, N. T. Wright, Peter Enns, Scot McKnight, and Rachel Held Evans, just to name a few. But if you know me at all, in real life or online, you probably already suspect that no author has influenced me more than C. S. Lewis.

I have written before about how Lewis said his imagination was "baptized" when he read George MacDonald's Phantastes, and how I can say the same for how the writings of C. S. Lewis have baptized my imagination.

So how has Lewis impacted my theological and spiritual journey? Well it is all related. I have always struggled with trying to keep everything on a more intellectual level, even spiritual things. Lewis's writing, especially his fiction, helps bridge the gap between my head and my heart via the imagination. He gets past my intellectual defenses just as he intended:

"But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.” - C. S. Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said" 

I was in second grade when I read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, and the rest of The Chronicles of Narnia soon after. I can't even remember how many times I have re-read this series at this point in my life, and I still love it. I love how Aslan's sacrifice makes me appreciate Jesus' sacrifice all the more. I love how the children's delight and awe of Aslan reinforces my delight and awe of God. I love the magic and the whimsy. There are so many poignant moments that grab my heart: the undragoning of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the time on the Dark Island when all hope seems lost and Lucy calls out to Aslan and hears him whisper, "Courage, dear heart." and so many more.

Later on, in college, I read The Great Divorce and The Space Trilogy (better called, "The Ransom Trilogy"). I love the visions of paradise and heaven in Perelandra and The Great Divorce (and The Last Battle). Reading Lewis's visions of heaven always makes me all the more excited for that day!

“And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

So far I have only been talking about Lewis's fiction, but his non-fiction has had profound effects on my theology as well. From Mere Christianity to The Problem of Pain, The Abolition of Man to The Weight of Glory, so much of Lewis's thoughts have shaped my own. I could probably write a whole series by myself just focused on answering this question! And of course I don't agree with everything C. S. Lewis wrote, but that doesn't take away from how much he has influenced me.

You can read more from me on C. S. Lewis in the 31 Days of C. S. Lewis series I did last October.

Courage, dear heart

Courage, dear heart
Take courage, my child.
Courage, dear heart,
Take courage, tonight.

I know right now it all seems so dark
Your hope is wavering
Trust in your Creator's heart
God's Love is never-ending

Courage, dear heart
Take courage, my child.
Courage, dear heart,
Take courage, tonight.

Rest in your Abba’s arms,
Let the One who made you see you through.
God's Love will never fail,
Love is always there for you.

When the night’s endless hours go on and on
And you want to give in and you want to give up
Fight back, fight the pain, fight the dark, fight the lies
with the truth: there is One always fighting for you

Listen close,
Love is with you in your darkest hour
Listen close, you can hear Love say

Courage, dear heart
Take courage, my child.
Courage, dear heart,
Take courage, tonight.

---------------------------------------------------------
I'm still tweaking the above song lyrics but the chorus is inspired by one of my favorite scene's in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader which I wrote about here.

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I tried posting every day in October. You can see an index of all previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity
Day 19: C.S. Lewis: Brief Biography: Did you know? (Part 2)
Day 20: C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Correct Reading Order

C. S. Lewis: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (The Lion and the Lamb)

I nearly forgot to mention yet another scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that adds to the reasons why it is one of my favorite books in the series. (Read the first two reasons here and here.) It is at the end of the book when the children have sailed all the way to the end of the world. You see, the world of Narnia is actually a flat world and not a round one like ours.

As they draw closer and closer to "Aslan's country" the light becomes brighter, the water becomes wetter, "stronger than wine and somehow wetter, more liquid than ordinary water". They stopped needing to eat and sleep. Lewis tells us that the sailors who had been older men when the voyage began were now growing younger every day. Their eyesight grew sharper, like eagle's eyes.

"They saw a wonder ahead. It was as if a wall stood up between them and the sky, a greenish-grey, trembling, shimmering wall. Then up came the sun, and at its first rising they saw it through the wall and it turned into wonderful rainbow colours. Then they knew that the wall was really a long, tall wave - a wave endlessly fixed in one place as you may often see at the edge of a waterfall. It seemed to be about thirty feet high, and the current was gliding them swiftly towards it. ... now they saw something not only behind the wave but behind the sun. They could not have seen even the sun if their eyes had not been strengthened by the water of the Last Sea. But now they could look at the rising sun and see it clearly and see things beyond it. What they saw - eastward, beyond the sun - was a range of mountains. It was so high that either they never saw the top of it or they forgot it. None of them remembers seeing any sky in that direction. And the mountains must really have been outside the world. For any mountains even a quarter of a twentieth of that height ought to have had ice and snow on them. But these were warm and green and full, of forests and waterfalls however high you looked. And suddenly there came a breeze from the east, tossing the top of the wave into foamy shapes and ruffling the smooth water all round them. It lasted only a second or so but what it brought them in that second none of those three children will ever forget. It brought both a smell and a sound, a musical sound Edmund and Eustace would never talk about it afterwards. Lucy could only say, "It would break your heart." "Why," said I, "was it so sad? " "Sad!! No," said Lucy.

No one in that boat doubted that they were seeing beyond the End of the World into Aslan's country." - C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chapter 16)

As I read the descriptions of what they are seeing, even from a distance, my heart beats faster as I long for "Aslan's country".

Once the children have reached the shore Lewis writes:

"between them and the foot of the sky there was something so white on the green grass that even with their eagles' eyes they could hardly look at it. They came on and saw that it was a Lamb.

"Come and have breakfast," said the Lamb in its sweet milky voice.

Then they noticed for the first time that there was a fire lit on the grass and fish roasting on it. They sat down and ate the fish, hungry now for the first time for many days. And it was the most delicious food they had ever tasted.

"Please, Lamb," said Lucy, "is this the way to Aslan's country?"

"Not for you," said the Lamb. "For you the door into Aslan's country is from your own world."

"What!" said Edmund. "Is there a way into Aslan's country from our world too?"

"There is a way into my country from all the worlds," said the Lamb; but as he spoke his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane."

I just love the image of the Lamb turning into the Lion. It's a different twist on the passage from Isaiah about the Lion and the Lamb laying down peacefully, together. (And of course it's also depicting the Lion of Judah/the Lamb of God and how they are one and the same.)

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy. "Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?"

"I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder. And now come; I will open the door in the sky and send you to your own land."

I love it so much! "Notice the "I am" statement, reminiscent of Jesus's "I AM" statements in the book of John.

And finally, there are these great lines:

But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 19: C.S. Lewis: Brief Biography: Did you know? (Part 2)
Day 20: C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Correct Reading Order
Day 21: C. S. Lewis: Why The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my Favorite Narnia Book
Day 22: C. S. Lewis: The Undragoning of Eustace

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

C. S. Lewis: The Undragoning of Eustace

Yesterday I mentioned a few reasons The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite Narnia book:

1. It has one of my favorite first lines of a book:
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

2. The un-dragoning of Eustace

3. Chapter 12: The Dark Island ("Courage, dear heart") - Yesterday's post.

So today I want to talk about Eustace.

Eustace is a character you kind of just want to punch in the face until his transformation experience with Aslan. He was arrogant, self-centered, and all around annoying to Edmund and Lucy.

On one of the islands the crew lands on, Eustace finds a dragon's lair and is very greedy for the treasure. He puts on a gold bracelet and falls asleep, and when he wakes up, he has been turned into a dragon. Lewis writes, "Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself." Eustace had fleeting thoughts of relief at being the biggest thing around, but he quickly realizes he is cut off from his friends, and all of humanity, and he feels a weight of loneliness and desperately wants to change.

That night, Aslan comes to Eustace and leads him to a large well "like a very big round bath with marble steps going down into it." Eustace describes the scene to Edmund after the fact. He says the water was so clear and he thought if he could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in his leg (from the gold bracelet he had put on when he was human). But Aslan told him he had to undress first. And doesn't God ask this of us? As Lewis wrote in Letters to Malcolm: "We must lay before him [God] what is in us; not what ought to be in us.”

Original illustration by Pauline Baynes

Eustace found that no matter how many layers of dragon skins he managed to peel off of himself, he was still a dragon.

“Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”
...
“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off ... And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again..." - C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 

This scene always grabs my heart. It reminds me that I cannot fix myself. It paints a beautiful picture of baptism and transformation to new life. It humbles me as I put myself in Eustace's place. And even long after our initial baptism we have the ongoing challenge of surrendering to God's work in our lives which can be painful at times, even when it's a good pain.

And I like Lewis's note of narration at the end of this scene as well:

"It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that “from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.” To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun."

Isn't that the way it is for all of us? We begin to be different as the grace of God changes us for the better. The cure has begun. 

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity
Day 19: C.S. Lewis: Brief Biography: Did you know? (Part 2)
Day 20: C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Correct Reading Order
Day 21: C. S. Lewis: Why The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my Favorite Narnia Book

C. S. Lewis: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Another question I am often asked is which is my favorite book of The Chronicles of Narnia. It is extremely difficult for me to pick a favorite. I have favorite scenes and passages in all of them. And you just can't beat the end of The Last Battle... but I usually end up saying The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my all around favorite for a few reasons:

1. It has one of my favorite first lines of a book:
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

2. The un-dragoning of Eustace (I will write about this in another post.)

3. Chapter 12: The Dark Island

I know, I know, why is a chapter called "The Dark Island" one of your favorite things about this book? Well let me tell you. Here we find Lucy, Edmond, Eustace, and Caspian sailing towards what they believe is an island, but turns out to be only darkness. Lewis tells the reader to imagine a railroad tunnel so long, or so twisty, that you cannot see the light at the end.

"The same idea was occurring to everyone on board. “We shall never get out, never get out,” moaned the rowers. “He’s steering us wrong. We’re going round and round in circles. We shall never get out.”

I'm sure we have all experienced some darkness in our lives. For me, the darkness of depression can feel very much like going round and round in circles with no hope of getting out.

And here when all on the ship are slipping into despair, when all hope seems lost and all they feel is fear, Lucy calls out to Aslan:

"Lucy leant her head on the edge of the fighting-top and whispered, 'Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now.' The darkness did not grow any less, but she began to feel a little - a very, very little - better...There was a tiny speck of light ahead, and while they watched a broad beam of light fell from it upon the ship...It did not alter the surrounding darkness, but the whole ship was lit up as if by searchlight.

Lucy looked along the beam and presently saw something in it. At first it looked like a cross, then it looked like an aeroplane, then it looked like a kite, and at last with a whirring of wings it was right overhead and was an albatross...It called out in a strong sweet voice what seemed to be words though no one understood them...no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, 'Courage, dear heart,” and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan’s, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face." - C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I love this so much. Because I need to hear those words, "courage, dear heart..."

Like Lucy, sometimes all I can do is cry out to Jesus, "if you ever loved me at all, send help now..."

The darkness may not fade away, but I do feel a little - a very, very little - better... for I know that in the end, the darkness will not overcome the Light. And I know the Light is with me, even when I can't see Him for the darkness.

And sometimes, in precious moments, I can hear him say, "Courage, dear heart."

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity
Day 19: C.S. Lewis: Brief Biography: Did you know? (Part 2)
Day 20: C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Correct Reading Order

C. S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia Correct Reading Order

From time to time I am asked in which order one should read The Chronicles of Narnia. I have a strong opinion about this, and I am in good company.

The original publication order was as such (from 1950 to 1956):

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
2. Prince Caspian
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. The Silver Chair
5. The Horse and His Boy
6. The Magician’s Nephew
7. The Last Battle

HarperCollins decided to change the order according to its internal chronology:

1. The Magician’s Nephew
2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3. The Horse and His Boy
4. Prince Caspian
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle

Original book illustration by Pauline Baynes

But here's the thing, The Magician's Nephew is a prequel. It assumes you already know certain things about Narnia and Aslan. If you read The Magician's Nephew first, you miss out on the awe and wonder of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Lewis even writes in LWW: “None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do.” This obviously wouldn't be true if you've already read The Magician's Nephew.

Lewis scholar, Devin Brown agrees:

"One need not be a Lewis scholar or an English professor to see that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe must be read first if we want to walk with and not ahead of the four Pevensie children as they hide inside the Professor's strange wardrobe and enter an enchanted land called Narnia. Reading this story first is the only way we can share their wonder."

Devin also writes: "Lewis scholar Peter Schakel maintains that the order the books are read in "matters a great deal" and argues that the original ordering is preferred by "a number" of Lewis scholars, is an understatement that should read "most" or "nearly all."

original book illustration by Pauline Baynes

Alister McGrath gives a couple additional reasons in C. S. Lewis – A Life:

• It is not possible to read the books in strict chronological order.
• The Horse and His Boy takes place during The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, not after.

• The books originally had subtitles which reveal Lewis's intentions.
• For example, the full title of Prince Caspian is Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia, which clearly suggests it should be read right after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
• Lewis also uses the subtitle "A Story for Children" for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle, the 1st and last books published.

So in conclusion, for the love of Narnia, read them in the original published order! ;-)

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity
Day 18: C. S. Lewis: Brief Biography (Part 1)

C.S. Lewis: Brief Biography: Did you know? (Part 2)

(Read Part 1 Here)

Did you know that C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were good friends for a time?
They first met in 1926 at a Merton College English Faculty meeting. Lewis recorded his initial apprehension in his diary - he called him a “smooth, pale, fluent little chap” and that there was “no harm in him: only needs a smack or so.”

Did you know that Tolkien was instrumental in Lewis becoming a Christian? 
I alluded to this in a previous post. On 19 September 1931, Jack and "Tollers" (Tolkien's closest friends called him this) together with their friend Hugo Dyson, were taking their usual after-dinner stroll on the grounds of Magdalen College. This was what Lewis was referring to here:

Now what Dyson and Tolkien showed me was this: that if I met the idea of sacrifice in a Pagan story I didn’t mind it at all: … if I met the idea of a god sacrificing himself to himself … I liked it very much and was mysteriously moved by it: … that the idea of the dying and reviving god (Balder, Adonis, Bacchus) similarly moved me provided I met it anywhere except in the Gospels. The reason was that in Pagan stories I was prepared to feel the myth as profound and suggestive of meanings beyond my grasp even tho’ I could not say in cold prose ‘what it meant’." (Letters 976) 

The three friends talked until after three o'clock in the morning and a few days later Lewis wrote to his old friend Arthur Greeves, saying: "I have just passed on from believing in God to definitely believing in Christ, in Christianity.... My long night talk with Dyson and Tolkien had a great deal to do with it", and that he would explain it at some other time.

Did you know that Lewis was instrumental in pushing Tolkien to publish the Lord of the Rings?
Lewis commented, “If they won’t write the kinds of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves.” Lewis encouraged Tolkien, to continue the work he had started in The Hobbit.
Tolkien also agreed to try “time-travel” and Lewis “space-travel,” which led to the Ransom Trilogy. And of course Lewis wrote the Narnia books as well.


Did you know that Lewis was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1947? 

-------------------------------------------------

If you want to learn more about C. S. Lewis, you could start by reading his autobiography of sorts, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life. There are also a number of biographies out there, and of course some are better than others.

His step-son, Douglas Gresham wrote Lenten Lands, My Childhood With C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman

One of the best biographies I have ever read on him was George Sayer's: Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times

A couple of other important ones would be:

- Walter Hooper and Roger Lancelyn Green's, C.S. Lewis: A Biography

- Walter Hooper's, C.S Lewis: A Companion and Guide

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity
Day 18: C. S. Lewis: Brief Biography (Part 1)

C.S. Lewis: Brief Biography (Part 1)

C. S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland on November 29, 1898.

He died the same day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November 22, 1963. (Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World also died that same day.)

Lewis's friends and family called him "Jack" because he didn't like his given name. The story goes that he had a dog called "Jacksie" when he was young and when the dog died, Lewis started making everyone call him "Jacksie" which later was shortened to just "Jack".

His full name was Clive Staples Lewis. His father was Albert James Lewis and his mother was Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis. She died in 1908 when Jack was only 10 years old. Jack's brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (Warnie) was born on June 16, 1895.

After Jack's mother died, his father sent him away to boarding school in England.

Lewis was very bad at math and if it wasn't for the fact that the university waived the entrance exam for those who had served in the army during WWI, Lewis may not have become the man he did because he failed the math section of the entrance exam.

-------------------------------------------------

If you want to learn more about C. S. Lewis, you could start by reading his autobiography of sorts, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of my Early Life. There are also a number of biographies out there, and of course some are better than others.

His step-son, Douglas Gresham wrote Lenten Lands, My Childhood With C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman

One of the best biographies I have ever read on him was George Sayer's: Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times

A couple of other important ones would be:

- Walter Hooper and Roger Lancelyn Green's, C.S. Lewis: A Biography

- Walter Hooper's, C.S Lewis: A Companion and Guide

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis's Baptized Imagination (Why I love C. S. Lewis)

In 1916, when C.S. Lewis was 18 (and still an atheist), he bought and read George MacDonald’s Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women. He writes about this in his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy:

“That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer [...] I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes” (Surprised by Joy 172).

Years before he intellectually believed in Christianity and accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he says his imagination was baptized by this book. Have you had this experience either before or after becoming a Christian?

The writings of C. S. Lewis have most certainly baptized my imagination. (Along with Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series, but this is about C. S. Lewis so I'll just have to talk more about L'Engle another time. =) )

I first read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe as an assignment for school in the second grade. I loved it so much that my mom and dad told me there were six more books in the series, and they had them, and I could read them! I was so excited. I have read and re-read those books over and over again ever since. (Interestingly enough, I made the decision to be baptized a couple of years later when I was in fourth grade, so perhaps Narnia and Aslan really did prepare my heart in ways I wasn't even aware of!)

I read The Screwtape Letters in high school and made my first attempt to read Mere Christianity as well.

The next Lewis books to baptize my imagination were The Great Divorce and The Space Trilogy (better called, "The Ransom Trilogy"). I was introduced to these books in Dr. Charlie W. Starr's C. S. Lewis course in college. You see, I have always struggled with trying to keep everything on a more intellectual level. Lewis's fiction helps bridge the gap between my head and my heart via the imagination. He gets past my intellectual defenses just as he intended:

“I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.” - C. S. Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said"

I hope to write more in a future post about The Ransom Trilogy and the ways in which it has deepened my faith via the imagination.

So what books (or other things) have baptized your imagination? Can you relate to what Lewis is talking about here?

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts (Highlights):
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity

In my previous post I mentioned in passing C. S. Lewis's trilemma argument he makes in Mere Christianity, that Jesus had to be either Lord, liar, or lunatic:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Lewis is saying that Jesus had to be who he said he was or else he was a liar or he was crazy/out of his mind.

There have been objections to his argument over the years, as Larry brought up in the comments on yesterday's post:

     "...there is at least one obvious alternative to the "daft, devilish, or divine" fork that Lewis describes in Mere Christianity: i.e., that the character of Jesus was fictional in whole or part, and either did not exist, or did not say the things attributed to him, or did not mean by those things what the Gospel writers, or we, think he did. Whether or not this possibility can be answered by convincing arguments, it clearly exists and is relevant. An unbeliever, citing the principle that remarkable claims require remarkable evidence, might reasonably (I think) argue that it is more probable that the complexly historied Gospel texts do not represent Jesus accurately -- texts often do not represent history accurately -- than that the man whom we glimpse through those accounts, which were written by worshipers of that man, was God.
     In short, only someone who views Christ's Gospel utterances as ipsissima verba, or very close to it, can be supposed to face the trilemma at all -- and such a person is already a species of believer. And even this is to put aside the argument's rather simplistic psychiatry, its baked-in claims about what a "lunatic" is or isn't capable of.
     As a Christian, I find the argument startlingly feeble. I'm startled, that is, that a thinker as good as Lewis usually was would have ever wasted his time on it. Do we really believe in the divinity of Christ because we find all the alternatives psychiatrically implausible? This seems an accurate account neither of Christian theological history, nor of any individual believer's personal path that I have heard of or can easily imagine . . .
What think ye?"

So what do I think? Well, I've heard and read these types of objections before. Bart Ehrman and others have suggested a fourth option could be that Jesus was a legend; not that he did not exist, but that the claims of his divinity were made by his followers and not by Jesus himself. I would argue that there are plenty of reasons/evidence in the text to believe Jesus made the claim himself, but I know there are many scholars who would love to disagree. Lewis denied that the Gospels were legends in an essay called, "What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?":

"Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. " - C. S. Lewis

N. T. Wright, a New Testament scholar I highly respect, also critiqued Lewis's trilemma in an article in Touchstone Magazine, entitled, "Simply Lewis". Wright says the argument "backfires dangerously when historical critics question [Lewis's] reading of the Gospels."

But Peter Kreeft has described the trilemma as "the most important argument in Christian apologetics" (Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics, 59).  The fact that Kreeft still has a higher opinion of it makes me feel better about the fact that I find that I still like it in spite of the arguments I have read against it. I would agree that it may need more nuance, but I don't think it is a worthless argument.

Lewis used the trilemma argument again in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when Lucy Pevensie told her siblings she had found a world called Narnia inside a wardrobe, and they ask the Professor what they should do, he replies:

"Why don’t they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth." (pg. 52)

Perhaps then, the trilemma should be more of an invitation for the skeptic to consider the claims of the Gospels more closely, to do honest research about the historical Jesus, and see what truth they find when they do.

What are your thoughts on this? Let's continue the discussion in the comments.

---------------------------------------------

In response to the 31 Day blogging challenge, I will be posting every day in October. You can read previous posts HERE. Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter to be notified of new posts. You can also Subscribe to get posts sent to you by email. (There is a simple form towards the top on the right where you can do this.)

Feel free to comment with your own thoughts and questions!

Index of Posts:
Day 1: 31 Days of C. S. Lewis (Introduction)
Day 2. C. S. Lewis on Longing (In "The Weight of Glory")
Day 3. C. S. Lewis on Sehnsucht (Longing and Desire in The Weight of Glory)
Day 4. C. S. Lewis Audio Recordings
Day 5: C. S. Lewis Online Resources
Day 6: C. S. Lewis: The Intolerable Compliment (The Problem of Pain)
Day 7: C. S. Lewis: What is "The Weight of Glory"?
Day 8: C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce and The Weight of Glory
Day 9: C. S. Lewis: A Grief Observed
Day 10: C. S. Lewis, Myth, and Postmodernism
Day 11: C. S. Lewis, Myth, and Postmodernism (Part 2)
Day 12: C. S. Lewis and Postmodernism (Part 3 - Conclusion)
Day 13: C. S. Lewis: The Grand Miracle (Myth and Allusions)
Day 14: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 1: More on Myth)
Day 15: C. S. Lewis: Is Theology Poetry? (Part 2: Metaphors, Symbols, and Science)
Day 16: C. S. Lewis and The Trilemma Argument in Mere Christianity